Gloria Montiel, Ed.M.’11, can’t recall the first time she heard about a place called Harvard, but from the sixth grade on, she could dream of nothing else.

Harvard offered a generous scholarship but still pegged her required contribution at $3,000 a year – a small amount to some, but not to a struggling, undocumented family ineligible for a Pell grant, work study, or federal loans

“I was sure I was going to go there,” says Montiel, who set about figuring out how. At the top of her class in eighth grade, she learned of a program that places children of color in elite prep schools. But her school counselor revealed a devastating truth: Montiel couldn’t apply. “At that moment, I realized that all this time, everything I had been doing toward payday installment loans my goals – this was going to become a problem,” Montiel recalls.

This was her status as an undocumented immigrant. When she was eight, Montiel’s parents crossed the border from Mexico and settled in Santa Ana, California, where Montiel established herself as a serious student in the local schools. It had never occurred to her that something about her identity would hurl into her path an insurmountable obstacle.

From that painful moment in the counselor’s office to this day, Montiel’s status is never out of mind. Like the estimated 65,000 or more undocumented students who graduate high school each year into uncertain futures, the reminders of their precarious situation are constant. For those who hope to go onto college, one of the most daunting challenges is how to pay for it since their families typically can’t help and their immigration statuses preclude any federal financial aid. Read more